Learn Japanese

If you are thinking to learn a language, there is no better language than Japanese or nihongo, as they call it.

Learn Japanese by first learning how to speak Japanese, which is relatively easy.

You don’t need to know or study grammar to speak Japanese. Just use it!

Learning Japanese is best done through practice, in much the same way that you learned your native language.

You were able to speak your native tongue long before you went to school.


How do I learn Japanese without studying grammar?

We’re going to learn basic sentence patterns and some useful Japanese phrases, through a basic Japanese conversation.

Let's learn to speak Japanese before getting into grammar.

All you need to do is replace a word or two in the basic patterns that we will learn, to say what you want to say.

Speaking Japanese is not difficult.

In fact it is rather easy, once you’ve mastered a few basic sentence patterns.

In order to use this Japanese course for beginners, you do not need to have any knowledge whatsoever of Japanese. If you do, that's OK too.


The idea is to be able to think actively in Japanese, rather than passively.


This means that when you think of something you want to say, then POW, it comes to you in Japanese.

The dialogues are all written using the English alphabet, which in Japanese they call “Romaji.”

Want to start now? Just press here or the "Dialogue in romaji" link at the bottom of this page.

How long should I invest in learning Japanese?

I would suggest you spend at least 10 minutes a day.

Don’t do a big block of time one day and then nothing for a few days.


Each day, begin at the beginning and work through, no matter where you got to in your previous session.


You will find that you will take less time going through the exercises each time and so will get further the next time.


Plus you will have a better grasp of what you covered in your previous session.


More importantly, the Japanese will be starting to associate with your English.

When should I start learning Japanese characters?


For improving pronunciation and for future study, learning the Japanese alphabet, which they call “Hiragana,” would be a good idea.

However, do that when you have mastered a basic conversation.

The Japanese alphabet is of a similar length to the English one and not difficult.

There is another alphabet that the Japanese use. This is called "katakana" and is used for writing foreign words. The Japanese alphabet symbols used in katakana are similar to hiragana.


Once you have mastered the dialogues, press the “Hiragana” button  and study the Hiragana Chart. 

After that, go through the conversations again as Hiragana practice.


After you’ve mastered the basic conversation in Hiragana and are used to Japanese letters, now would be the time to get into kanji, the Chinese symbols, and Japanese grammar.

You will need a bit of grammar if you want to read.

So, now we go through the conversations, yet again, checking out the grammar points and gaining an introduction to Kanji.

Kanji are the Chinese characters, which the Japanese use in their writing.

At this point you will be set up for an easy and enjoyable study of Japanese.

You will now be able to learn Japanese and apply it quickly.

 When you want to start, press the “dialogue in romaji” link.

dialogue in romaji
Let's practice a Japanese dialogue in romaji. This way, we can learn to speak some Japanese without having to learn Japanese characters.
Hiragana
How do I learn hiragana?
Katakana
Learn katakana and build your own katakana chart,
kanji Introduction
A kanji intro, so that you will have an idea of what these conversations look like in real Japanese, using kana and kanji, with no spaces.
Japanese Grammar
Let's learn a little Japanese grammar and understand how these sentences are put together.
English to Japanese Dialogues
Let's learn some more English to Japanese dialogues, build on the ones we know and get better at speaking Japanese.
Japanese Words
Let's take a look at Japanese words and see how they change and add extra meaning, where in English you would have to extra words to convey this meaning.
Japanese Words Two
For this Japanese Words Two, let's look at how to construct more complex Japanese sentences around a verb.
Japanese Words Three
In Japanese Words Three, we will look at Japanese particles. This is an important subject if you want to master Japanese.
Japanese Words Four
Let's learn about Japanese adjectives in our Learn Japanese series.